With the presentation of this year’s Hower Award to Dr. Bruce H. Cohen at the CNS Annual Meeting in Montreal, the history of the highest honor the Society bestows on its members comes full circle. Established in 1974, two years after the Society’s founding, the award was the brainchild of Dr. Dean Timmons, Bruce’s predecessor at Akron Children’s Hospital. Named after the Hower family, one of Akron Children’s leading benefactors, the award recognizes CNS members who are highly regarded as teachers and scholars and who have contributed significantly to child neurology both nationally and internationally (Table).
Few CVs rival Dr. Cohen’s in the number, range, and duration of leadership roles and responsibilities taken on in multiple neurological organizations. None can match his record of strong advocacy of the Hower Award tradition at Akron Children’s since his arrival in 2011. In addition to delivering a capstone presentation at the fall CNS annual meeting, the Hower Awardee gives a second talk the following spring in Akron at a dinner hosted by the Hower Foundation and Akron Children’s Hospital, followed the next day by grand rounds at the hospital. In a very real sense, presentation of the Hower Award to Dr. Cohen represents not just a personal career capstone but, for the Award itself—and the CNS—a homecoming.
Born and raised in St. Louis, Bruce graduated summa cum laude with an A.B. in Chemistry from Washington University in 1978, the same year, coincidentally, that the Hower Award was presented to renowned Washington University pediatric neurologist Philip R. Dodge, MD, in whose honor the CNS Young Investigator Award is named. After earning his M.D. at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, graduating AOA in 1982, Bruce did a pediatric residency at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, then completed his pediatric neurology residency at Columbia, where he trained with former CNS Hower Award recipient Darryl DeVivo. He then returned to CHOP for a pediatric neuro-oncology fellowship under the direction of former CNS Bernard Sachs Awardee Roger J. Packer.
Bruce’s work at CHOP focused on neuro-oncology and neurofibromatosis, leading to his first faculty appointment at The Cleveland Clinic; he later served as Chairman of Pediatric Neurology from 1999–2002, rising to full professorship at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 2010. In 2011, Bruce joined Akron Children’s Hospital, where he presently serves as Director of the Neurodevelopmental Science Center and Director of Scientific Affairs and Clinical Trials of the Rebecca D. Considine Research Institute and holds the Philip H. Maynard Chair in Neurodevelopmental Sciences. He holds the title of Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Integrative Medical Sciences at Northeast Ohio Medical University.
Well known and regarded for his scientific expertise in mitochondrial medicine and his subspecialty practice focus in neuro-oncology and neurogenetics, Bruce has published more than 140 peer-reviewed manuscripts, initially in diagnostic aspects and clinical trials of brain tumors and optic gliomas, and subsequently on diagnostic aspects, therapeutics, and consensus recommendations in the challenging area of mitochondrial disorders. Paralleling his significant research contributions is a 40-year commitment to collaborative study of the practical aspects of neurology, initially as chair of the CNS Practice Committee and ultimately as the recognized expert on diagnostic coding in pediatric neurology, culminating in his current role as chair of the AAN Advocacy Committee. For many years, he ran Breakfast Seminars on the subject of medical coding at the CNS Annual Meeting, filling up the auditorium, with discussions pouring into the hallway following the conclusion of the allotted meeting. He has published and lectured extensively on health care economics and delivery models at multiple forums hosted by a broad array of medical organizations.
Dr. Cohen’s contributions to the country’s neurological societies are immense. He has chaired the AAN’s Child Neurology Section, Coding Subcommittee of the Medical Economics and Management Committee, Advocacy Committee, and served on the AAN Board of Directors since 2021. He was President of the Professors and Educators of Child Neurology from 2009–2011. He has the distinction of being the longest-serving member of the CNS Executive Committee, having been elected by his peers to serve as Councillor from the Midwest (2013–2015), Secretary-Treasurer (2016–2020), and President, a role that includes President Elect (2020–2021), President (2021–2023), Immediate Past-President (2023–2024), and Chair of the Nominating Committee (2023–2025).
Bruce has served on many editorial boards and study sections and has received numerous awards, including the St. Louis Chemical Council Award in 1977, the Lawrence Koreness Humanitarian Award of the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation in 2002, Healthcare Heroes of Cleveland Crain’s Business Daily in 2011, and the Vanguard Award of the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation in 2019. In the minds of our CNS colleagues, however, no award is more fitting than the 2026 Hower Award. If, as someone has suggested, the Sachs Award recipients might be likened to iconic jazz solo artists—think Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins—Hower Award recipients might call to mind great ensemble leaders like Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Benny Goodman, all accomplished musicians in their own right, but each possessing a special added gift for collaboration, an ability to identify, inspire, and harmonize the disparate instruments, egos, and sensibilities of their talented peers to create music whose sum is greater than its parts.
Bruce has inspired countless students, residents, colleagues, patients, and families with his gentle, intelligent, caring manner and is among the leading pediatric neurologists of his generation. His delightful wife, Anna, is a nurse practitioner at Akron Children’s who has been a constant source of support, and he has four children who are all on their own journeys: Jordon, a proud federal employee working as a team leader for the Library of Congress; Arielle, an Infectious Disease fellow also working on her MPH at Duke and UNC; Sam, a long-distance runner at the University of Rochester; and Eva, a fourth-generation Washington University graduate (great-grandmother 1922, grandfather 1948, father 1978) pursuing an MD/PhD program. What a legacy!